Highland Rake

by Terry Spear

  Alana scowled at Dougald. "I had a task to do and 'tis no more. You have no need to take me to your laird."

  Stubbornly, he shook his head. "You remain with us for now."

  "You wished to know if I would attempt to release you from our dungeon if my uncle ever put you there? Nay. I wouldna." She stalked over to the spot of earth where she'd rested before, curled up on the soft grass in Dougald's blanket and jerked it over her head so she could not see the men watching her.

  No one spoke a word, nor did anyone move from the ground they were rooted to.

  Dougald finally broke the silence. "Go back to sleep. We leave before dawn."

  And his was the word of God, Alana thought, figuring James would even be worse.

  ***

  Later that night, horses' hooves pounded the ground from a distance, and Dougald quickly rose from his plaid, grabbing his sword in the process, pulse racing as he readied himself to fight the enemy, and protect the lass.

  No one would ever get any sleep at this rate, Dougald thought as the horses drew closer. All his men hurried to rise from sleeping on their plaids, wrapping the wool around their bodies, grabbing swords and readying for the assault, except for those already on guard duty.

  With a slight moan, the lady stood shakily on her feet, looking tired and the worse for wear, particularly after the very long horse ride she'd had, and Dougald imagined she was feeling sore all over. Her golden hair was bared for all to see and in the full moon's light and the flames still flickering in the fire, he was momentarily entranced by the silky rumpled fall of it about her shoulders. Sometime during the night she must have removed her veil.

  "You have to turn me over to my uncle," she said wearily, looking at Dougald, not in the direction of the horses.

  Not when the lady had trespassed on their lands, he didn't. And not when his brother had a say in this as laird over these lands.

  He directed three of his men to watch the lady and take her into the darkness away from the camp and the soft glow of the fires so that she was invisible to the encroaching party. Callum waited to learn where he would go, and Dougald motioned with his head for the lad to accompany the lady. The men watching her were there partly for her protection and partly to ensure she didn't try to slip away. They quickly pulled her out of sight.

  Only minutes later, his sword readied, Dougald spied his youngest brother, Angus, riding with the party of twelve men, and he grinned. He hadn't seen his brother in a year.

  Gunnolf resheathed his sword and chuckled. "I would not have expected him this eve."

  Angus dismounted, as one of the men hurried to take his horse and led him away, and Dougald gave him a sound embrace, followed by a slap on the back by Gunnolf.

  "We thought you were a raiding party," Dougald said, smiling at his youngest brother. His curly brown hair was longer now, his crooked smile as bright as always.

  "I thought you were a raiding party as well, though it appeared you were not right in the head with having so many campfires about."

  Dougald smiled at that.

  Niall hurried over to embrace Angus. "You have arrived just in time. Now you can stay and protect James and our kin. I can go with Dougald and Gunnolf."

  Angus frowned. "I return home and you are both leaving?"

  Dougald shook his head. "Appears we will be staying a wee bit longer. Where have you been all this time? Still residing with Malcolm and his wife?"

  "I have returned from England where King Henry has taken up arms to hunt down a Welsh prince who stole away his former mistress, the Welsh Princess Nest."

  Dougald shook his head. "Were you there?"

  "In the vicinity, but the accounts varied as to what had occurred."

  Dougald led his brother to the campfire and one of the men brought him a flask of ale. "To hear some speak of it, the man was welcomed into Gerald FitzWalter and his wife's castle with the pretense that he wished to visit with one of his kinswomen. Then he and his party planned to kill the lord, and she convinced her husband and his men to escape in the lavatory chute to protect themselves."

  Dougald raised a brow.

  Angus shrugged a shoulder. "That was one telling of the story. Some say she went willingly with him. She was the king's mistress, and he gave her to Gerald as his wife. She's very beautiful and the Welsh prince just as charming. Who knows what really happened? Gerald begged the king to help him recover his wife on his behalf and so the king and his men are off to do just that. Who knows how it will all play out?"

  "So you have been in the south again? Looking for a bride?"

  "Unsuccessfully." Angus glanced over to see Dougald's men return Alana to the bed they'd made for her. His brows rose, and he smiled. "Well, what have we here? I should have never left the Highlands. Who is this, pray tell?"

  "Lady Alana," Dougald said, "meet my youngest brother, Angus."

  The lady gave him a curt nod of greeting.

  "A lady, is she?" Angus asked.

  "The Cameron's niece."

  Angus's mouth gaped for a moment, then he looked back at Dougald.

  "Your brother has taken me hostage." Alana sat down on the borrowed plaid, then lay down and covered herself up in it. "Mayhap you will convince him of his folly."

  Angus grinned and slapped Dougald on the shoulder. "Well done, I say. Has James been informed?"

  "Aye. Tavis took word to him already. We will hear what he has to say about this by tomorrow eve."

  Alana directed her next comment to Angus, "You are as bad as your older brother and will be in just as much trouble if you dinna convince him to release me at once."

  No one said a word for a moment, then Angus laughed. "No one can get into trouble over the lasses as much as he can. And I am sure this proves my point perfectly."

  Chapter 8

  "Did they search for you?" Connell, her annoying spirit of a brother, asked Alana as she was not quite awake the next morn, though it was still dark out.

  Startled, she opened her eyes and saw her brother curled up in his plaid a little ways away from her, watching her, the campfires casting a soft glow in the dark.

  "What?" she whispered, annoyed. She wished he wouldn't surprise her so. Furthermore, he frustrated her with coming up with questions out of nowhere, making no sense at all, as if they had been having a conversation all along and she should know just what he was asking. Besides, she wished to sleep longer. But she knew her brother would not quit pestering her until she answered him.

  "When Da and his men were murdered, did the men who killed them search for you?"

  She closed her eyes, reliving the moment so long ago. Of hiding under the moldy, decomposing leaves. Of fighting the awful urge to sneeze. Of hearing the battle cries, the clanking of steel swords as they struck their enemies'. Of the grunts of the men, the cries of pain, and the silence accompanying the end of the fighting.

  Her heart thundering, she had listened, waited, praying her father would call out to her.

  Movement. She had heard men's boots and horses' hooves tromping on the ground, drawing closer. Her blood rushed in her ears. Her breathing was too fast. She wanted to get up and run. No words were spoken. No orders given. Why wasn't anyone calling out? Searching for her?

  Because her people were no more. And the ones in the area? They were quiet, not wanting her to realize she knew they were the enemy who had won this day. That they were looking for her. The sole survivor of the slaughter.

  "Alana, did they search for you?"

  Tears filled her eyes. "Aye. They did," she said, her voice a hush. She took a consoling breath and looked at her brother. "You think they knew I was with our da? That I would be a witness to the massacre? Or had they wanted me for some other reason?"

  "Were you with the men as a group when they were attacked?" Connell asked, his questions focused while he didn't answer her own. He seemed both concerned and angry. Not angry with her, more…worried if anything.

  She bit her lip.

  "They were h
unting," he persisted. "Da and the other men. Often when you went hunting with us, and they took chase after a stag, you couldna keep up. You were only nine at the time. Had you been separated from them so when they were attacked, the brigands had not spied you?"

  "Why do you ask this of me now, Connell? Why not long ago?" She tried to keep her voice low, though she couldn't help the annoyance she felt. She'd been questioned mercilessly by her uncle, her father's advisor, her brother, by other clansmen. Only the women had let her be.

  And she had emphatically told everyone the same thing over and over again. She had seen nothing and no one. The men had used no names between them. Which her kin had thought suspicious at the time. She remembered seeing glances shared between them every time she was asked if any names were exchanged and every time she said no. She would have shared their names with her kin. She would have told them if she'd known. Instead, she could identify no one.

  "They moved in closer to you, nearly stepped on you," Connell persisted.

  "It happened so fast," she said under her breath. "So very fast. Aye, Da and the other men had ridden after a stag. One of the younger men stayed with me when I fell behind. But when we heard the fighting, he told me to hide and he rode into battle. Landon, he was…he was only five and ten."

  "Aye, I know. But you said Da told you to hide."

  He had. That's what had confused her. He had ridden back and told her to send her horse away and then to run and hide. All she could think of doing was burying herself in the leaves. She left her bow and quiver of arrows with her horse. She had the dagger that Da had given her the year before, and then she'd hidden and prayed that he would come for her soon.

  "Was Da already dead?" Connell asked.

  She took a sharp breath. "I..I dinna know for certain," she whispered. Yet she wondered, had her father already died, and she'd only seen his ghost? He'd seemed so real. Just like when he'd come back for her and taken her home. Just like Connell appeared to her now.

  "They had to have known a girl was with the hunting party," she finally said. then she frowned. "Dougald MacNeill found my horse and gave her to Odara's da, who returned her to the keep." Alana wiped tears away.

  "But the MacNeills took no part in the killings, our uncle said. And the others who did, searched for you. You saw the men."

  "Nay. I had my eyes closed."

  "They drew close, Alana. They were so close, you felt a man's leather boot brush past your arm. He knocked leaves aside, and you said you feared he'd see you. You had to have looked up at him. You had to have seen him."

  "I was buried. I…I lay very still. I didna move. I lay there as if I was a fallen tree buried by the leaves."

  "Think harder. You saw him. What did he look like?"

  "Why do you persist in this line of questioning? I saw naught that night. I saw naught."

  "For weeks, you screamed out in terror when you tried to sleep at night. One of the maids said you saw one of the men who participated in killing our men."

  Had she blocked the memory from her mind so that at night the terror revisited her, but upon waking, she could not remember what had happened no matter how hard she tried?

  "Alana," Dougald said, crouching in front of her, his expression one of concern, his brows deeply furrowed. "Are you all right, lass?"

  She felt her cheeks flame. "Aye."

  "'Tis time to break our fast." He was looking at her curiously, and she realized most of the men had left to hunt and gather wood to rebuild the fire to cook a meal, but she had an audience of four—Dougald, Angus, Niall, and Gunnolf.

  And her brother was…gone.

  So just how much had the men heard?

  ***

  Not wanting to send any of his men with Alana to watch her as she left the camp for a bit of privacy, but wanting to speak privately with his brother and cousin and Gunnolf over what they'd overheard Alana speaking of, Dougald opted to stay with her instead.

  He wanted to ask her what had occurred before dawn this morning, but it would have to wait. Storms were rolling in at a fast pace and though he had intended to continue onto the castle and to reach it by nightfall, he would not risk the lady's health and would stop by the nearby village and stay there until the brunt of the storm passed.

  She had looked so startled when she had realized he was crouching in front of her and had been for some time that he wondered just who she could have been speaking to. At first, he'd meant to wake her, but when she opened her eyes and began talking—to him, he thought, he'd paused and listened. Her question—asked in a highly annoyed whisper and simply, "What?"—had taken him aback.

  He had at first assumed he'd startled her awake, and she was attempting to cover up her fright by being annoyed with him. But then she began to talk about her da and the massacre, and he didn't know what to think. He certainly hadn't brought the subject up. He hadn't even realized she might have witnessed her da's murder. That they were on a hunt, he knew that much. That her brother…Connell. Damnation, that's what she'd called him. Well, not Dougald, but she'd been looking right at him when she called him Connell.

  Had she been talking in her sleep? But tears had formed in her eyes, and she looked very much liked she'd been awake.

  He'd heard rumors that she talked to the fae, or…if the stories could be true, ghosts. Had she been talking to her dead brother? He'd died…several weeks past, murdered for his transgression with a married lass. Alana asked why he was questioning her now…about her da's murder? So long ago?

  God's wounds, he thought his brother Malcolm had married a lass with abilities no person should ever have. God save the man who married Alana if she spoke to ghosts whenever the need arose. He could just imagine being in bed with the lass and there was her brother…curled up beside her…or beside Dougald.

  As much as he was dying to know the truth, so were his brother, cousin, and Gunnolf. They happened to be watching the whole situation once they saw him crouching before Alana, but not waking her to ready for the journey, and instead listening to her speaking to someone like she was having a normal conversation. Only her words were whispered. To an extent.

  He heard them, and so did his kin and his friend.

  He wanted to speak with her. But he'd already seen the tears in her eyes and the ones rolling down her cheeks that she'd brushed away, and he didn't want to start the waterfall again.

  ***

  As they began their journey, the men were mostly quiet. A couple of them way in the lead talked about something Alana couldn't hear. She was riding her own horse, stiff, her arse killing her, and she would be glad to get out of the saddle for a couple of days.

  Dougald rode at her left flank, Angus on her right, displacing Niall. He hadn't been happy about it, though he still looked hopeful that Angus would stay with James, and Niall would take off with Gunnolf and Dougald when they decided to journey somewhere else.

  She felt the two brothers watching her from time to time. She'd barely been able to eat a bite of the bread and nothing more that they'd shared that morning. She couldn't believe she'd been talking to her brother, whispering, aye, but was startled to realize Dougald had been crouching before her. How much had he and the others heard?

  The men had talked plenty before they got ready to ride again. All but the four who may have overheard her speaking with her ghost of a brother.

  "Do you often talk in your sleep, Lady Alana?" Dougald finally asked her.

  She turned her head sharply to look at him. "What?" She'd heard him, but she didn't know what else to say. Mayhap this would be the perfect way out for her. She was prone to talking in her sleep. Wouldn't that solve her problems? Except when she was perfectly awake and still talking to ghosts.

  "My sister used to talk in her sleep when she was overly tired," Dougald said, watching her, his expression one of sympathy.

  Alana considered the notion more carefully. If she talked in her sleep, she wouldn't know about it, would she? Only others who might have heard her would realize
she did such a thing. Watching the men in front of them to avoid looking at Dougald and giving herself away, she shook her head. "Nay."

  "That is true," Dougald said, agreeing cheerfully with her. "If you talked in your sleep you most likely wouldna remember."

  "I dinna talk in my sleep," she said, as if saying so would confirm that that's what it had to have been.

  "One time, I thought she was talking in her sleep, my sister that is, but she wasna," Dougald continued.

  Alana looked at him. His sister couldn't have spoken to ghosts, too, could she?

  Dougald's expression had darkened, but he didn't say anything further to explain what had happened.

  "'Tis going to rain," Connell warned.

  She glanced in Angus's direction but Connell was riding his borrowed ghostly horse next to her. He motioned to the sky. "They willna want to risk you getting sick. They will have to take you to the nearest village. It will be hours before you can travel again. Mayhap no' until the morrow. You could attempt to leave then. I could help you get home. Mayhap this is the verra reason I am here. To see you home like Da did."

  She opened her mouth to say something to him when he vanished, and she realized Angus was studying her. She clamped her lips shut and focused on the sky. The wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped several degrees. The sky had progressively darkened from a pale gray to ominous blue-gray, the clouds shifting and reshaping into mountains.

  "We willna make it," Angus said to Dougald.

  "Aye, but we are close now."

  "To Craigly Castle?" Alana asked. It was early morning. They weren't supposed to arrive there until nightfall.

  Dougald shook his head. "To a village near here. They have a tavern. We will stay there until the storm passes."

  So her brother had been right about Dougald taking them to the village.

  "The rain doesna bother me. We can keep riding," she said, afraid her brother would convince her to try to steal away from the tavern, and she'd get herself in more of a mess than she was in now.

  Dougald gave her a small smile. "It pleases me that you are so eager to reach Craigly Castle. But Angus, here, might catch his death. James would have my head for it. So we shall stop at the village."